Saturday, June 1, 2013

Benjamin Cohen: "Comment: Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks can vote for me to have the freedom to marry the man I love"

5/29/13-PinkNews
founder Benjamin Cohen has written a column for the Jewish News
newspaper to urge the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks to carefully
consider the upcoming House of Lords vote on same-sex marriage.

Lord Sacks’ comments are both encouraging
and disappointing, leaving more questions than answers and probably reflect the
contradictory approach to human sexuality adopted by the United Synagogue. I
didn’t know that Lord Sacks had met with this group, but 20 years ago, I was
just a little boy.

As far as I know, he has never engaged with the blossoming Jewish LGBT
(lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) community since.

Twenty years ago, gays were banned from the military and from adopting
children, there was an unequal age of consent and a ban on teachers talking
about homosexuality in school. It was also legal to sack someone for being gay
and for businesses to ban gay customers.

Most importantly, there were no
civil partnerships and certainly no prospect of a Conservative prime minister passionately
advocating for the introduction of same-sex marriage. As British society has
changed so, too, has the Jewish community, not least because in every
synagogue, there are countless families with gay members.

I’ve always felt welcome by my parents’ Orthodox friends, who were also
particularly hospitable when my boyfriend attended our shul for the first time
during Passover. They’re happy, I’m happy and aren’t concerned about one
particular law in the Torah against a private and harmless love no one can
logically explain.

Given the changes in British society and our community, it seemed odd the Chief
Rabbi would discuss such an old encounter. I wondered if he had perhaps had
other meetings with Jewish gay groups since, so I called his office to enquire.
The best I achieved was a “no comment” email – a strange way to try engage with
a relatively influential member of the gay community.

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